‘My mother neglected’ claim

Daughter flies in from US to resolve issues at £500-a-month home

ALLEGATIONS of neglect and poor hygiene have been made against an Oldham care home by the daughter of a resident suffering from dementia.

Alice Woolley (84) moved into the Treelands care home, Wester Hill Road, Fitton Hill, in September, 2005.

When her daughter Linda Woolley (54), who lives in the US, visited last May she said she found a string of neglect and hygiene issues at the home.

Ms Woolley, originally from Fitton Hill but living outside Atlanta, Georgia, has now travelled to Oldham for five weeks with the express purpose of finding her mother a new home.

She said: “When I put my mother there I was absolutely thrilled with the facility which had a specialist dementia wing.

“They bragged about having a dementia consultant.

“During my visit last May, I could tell the home had gone downhill.

“My mother wasn’t wearing any incontinence underwear and I found her in urine-soaked clothes on a number of occasions.

“The home never told me she had put on weight so her clothes were cutting into her and two months prior to my arrival, someone had spent £100 of her money with no indication of where it had gone.

“I e-mailed through a list of my concerns but never received any plan of action to correct them.”

Since her arrival in Oldham last month, she said there has been an outbreak of norovirus, or winter vomiting bug, at the home.

And she claims her mother’s en-suite bathroom was dirty.

She said: “My mum’s toilet seat was crusty and covered in some sort of substance.

“So I unscrewed it and dropped it off at the manager’s office and asked if she would sit on it. A new toilet seat arrived the following day.”

Mrs Woolley pays £500 a month to stay at the private home run by Southern Cross, which also runs the Avalon Park home in Salem.

The company hit the headlines last week after MPs demanded a Government inquiry into standards at more than 700 of its homes across the country, amid allegations of neglect.

Neither of the homes in Old897ham is involved in the allegations.

Ms Woolley has contacted Social Services with her concerns as well as the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), the independent care home watchdog.

She has issued Treelands with a two-week notice of her intention to move her mother out.

Ms Woolley said: “None of this is directed at the staff who genuinely care about the residents, but if they are not given the tools to properly care for the residents, that is where they fall short.

“I want the home to correct their policies and quality of care issues.

“There is a great need for homes for the elderly.

“They should provide the service they said they were going to in the first place.”

A spokesman for the home said: “The home’s teams of professionals are dedicated to providing quality care for our residents and we have procedures in place to deal with any concerns raised by them or their relatives.

“The manager has recently met with Ms Woolley and also spoken to her over the phone.

“We would, of course, be happy to have further dialogue.”